


The Flight to His Waiting Dove

by Stormvoël (BushRat8)



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: A reminder that Pirates of the Caribbean is a supernatural tale, Earring, F/M, Grantham House, Queen Anne's Revenge - Freeform, Sorrow, That Wig, The Black Pearl - Freeform, Waiting For Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-14
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-05-23 06:28:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14928971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BushRat8/pseuds/Stormvo%C3%ABl
Summary: Captain Barbossa, grieving and worn out, finally goes home to his Sophie.





	The Flight to His Waiting Dove

**Author's Note:**

> Several stories from the Barbossa/Innkeeper arc are referenced and quoted from.
> 
> Though I'm sure she was tempted, Elizabeth Turner never told Will about the baby that Sophie and Barbossa lost, as she felt it was something Sophie had told her in the strictest confidence.
> 
> Sophie's formal name is Sophia, and Barbossa calls her by that now and again.
> 
> When he visits Sophie's grave, Barbossa includes sprigs of the herb rosemary amongst the the flowers he puts there for two reasons: first, she often used it to cook with, especially in the carrot dish that was one of his favorites; second, as a very old saying goes: "Rosemary is for remembrance." It is often used at weddings and funerals; during celebrations and for mourning. Shakespeare used the saying in _Hamlet_ , as spoken by Ophelia, but the concept far predates him.
> 
> The green apple he leaves is self-explanatory; the orange, because he knows how proud Sophie was of her orange tree.

 

 

 

-oOo-

 

 

The _Queen Anne's Revenge_ is anchored half a mile offshore from Sophie's Port, as Barbossa calls it, and his men are piling into the cockboats, intent on having a high old time once they hit land.  "Comin', Cap'n?"  one of his riggers calls.  
  
Barbossa manages a twitch of a smile.  "Later,"  he answers.  "Got business t' finish up first."  
  
"Aye, sir."  
  
Some few men remain to take care of the ship;  they'll have their turn ashore as others come back.  For a pirate ship, the _Revenge_ runs very smoothly, with every man knowing his duties and receiving his reward.   Barbossa is proud of caring for the ship better than Blackbeard ever did.  
  
There are so many days, though, that he wishes he still had the _Black Pearl_ in his possession, and never more than when he brings his men into Sophie's Port.  Oh, how his Sophie loved the _Pearl_.  She never once came aboard — she knew the superstitions about women on ships and that his crew believed in them — but she recognized the _Pearl's_ outlines and always knew that her figurehead with the dove in her hands and expanse of her black sails meant he was coming home.  
  
Taking up his best spyglass, Barbossa looks toward the shore and the high hill where she's buried.  She'd be lying in the churchyard, his Sophie, if not for him, but that thought does not disturb him any more than it would disturb her.  The churchyard lies low and crowded, but from Lookout Point, though she be surrounded by strangers, she can see him approach, as he can see where she rests.  "Sophia, m' love,"  he whispers.  "Ye've not long t' wait for me now, Dove, I swear it."  
  
Though he's hidden it from the men, Barbossa has felt most unwell for some three months now.  Old wounds have been making themselves felt in painfully disagreeable ways, and the burning sensation in his stomach is constant, rendering him unable take more than a minimum of the plainest food that often won't stay down, with the result that he's growing thinner.  Though always a light sleeper out of necessity, that danger will not come upon him unawares, sleep comes these nights only with utter exhaustion and even then gives no rest, and he just doesn't feel like himself.  More than that, the acquisition of riches has lost its appeal;  a strange thing, for a man who's spent his whole life in the business of piracy.  
  
_What use riches_ ,  he wonders,  _when th' one what makes life worthwhile bain't here?_  
  
Barbossa has lost so many things and so many people throughout his life, some valued more than others, but none to rival the loss of Sophie Grantham;  not even the _Black Pearl_.  He never told her he loved her when she was alive, but now that she's gone, he can't stop saying it in the hope that she'll hear him.  And she does hear him, doesn't she?  _Ye must, sweet Sophie_ ,  he thinks.  _Ye must!_  
  
He lowers the spyglass, sighs deeply, wipes reddened eyes with his sleeve, then raises the instrument again;  this time, toward a decrepit building he owns in the town;  what used to be Grantham House, his refuge.  Today might be a good time to visit it:  to look through its rooms, to feel the memories there, to kneel at the grave of his son.  
  
The bed on which he slept with Sophie is still there.  Perhaps he will take a moment to lie in it and remember all the words they whispered to each other and all the love they made.  
  
Barbossa's hands shake and the spyglass clatters to the deck;   he clumsily stumps down the ladder to his cabin, slamming the doors shut before he slumps to the floor, unable to hold back his tears.  
  
He doesn't try to stifle his sobs;  there's no one around to hear him, and in any case, what's the use?  He'd hoped his grief might fade a bit over time or at least become easier to manage — isn't that the way it's supposed to work? — but it's only become sharper and much more painful.  "Dove!"  he weeps.  "Oh Sophie, darlin', why did ye leave me?  Did ye not trust me t' come back?  How could ye die when I need ye so much?"  
  
Barbossa hates himself when he blames her for dying, and he despises himself now.  It was he who didn't come back, he who didn't write, he who let her think he'd perished or forgotten their home and forgotten her.  The consumption that killed her wasn't her fault, and the only damn fool thing she ever did in her life was to love him, but what really tears him apart is knowing that the anguish and desolation he feels now is exactly what she must have felt when he vanished and never returned.  How could he do that to her?  How _could_ he?  
  
As it does often, his hand goes to his throat, feeling for the pendant that's no longer there:  the swirling snake encircling a ruby that he placed around Sophie's neck the last time he saw her.  Three times he gave it to her, and twice she returned it when he next came home, her fingers gently patting it into its accustomed place against his sunburnt chest;  but now, he can only pray it went into the grave with her as a reminder of his love and that no one stole it from her as death stole her from him.  Should he ever find it in another's possession, or traded as a trinket in the marketplace, there will be hell to pay.  
  
Presently, Barbossa dries his eyes, gets up, and goes over to his sea chest — a more-or-less new one, since he gave Sophie gifts packed in the old — and withdraws a worn, sweat-stained linen shift:  a chemise she wore and wore and wore, until no amount of washing in strong lye soap could get rid of her scent.  He sleeps with it sometimes, his face buried in the cloth, remembering what it was like to press tickling kisses under her arms, beneath her breasts, between her legs.  _So sweet, an' such a delight 'pon m' tongue_ ,  he sighs.  _If that weren't ambrosia, nothing were_.  
  
There's another cloth in the chest;  one which resided in his pocket until the day he almost lost it.  Now he keeps it folded and carefully sealed in a small gold box, the better to preserve it from damage.  He removes the box and closes his eyes in reverence for a moment before lifting the lid.  
  
The bloodied part of the sheet on which they'd slept their very first night.  
  
Every day of his life, Barbossa has thought about what a gift Sophie gave him:  to live her life in waiting, in the hope that he'd come back to her, for she loved him just that much.  She was but a maiden of 18 when he went away, and she could have married someone else or just decided he wasn't worth it, but she waited… and waited… and waited.  When he finally returned and they'd tumbled into bed, he'd not even had the good grace to ask if it was her first time with a man;  he just took her to him, crawling inside her, pushing deeper than he ever thought possible, and holding her as tight as he could.  And then he discovered the blood on the sheet the following morning.  
  
He was her first man, her only man, the only one she'd ever loved or wanted.  _Doves mate for life_ ,  he thinks as a fresh spill of tears runs down his cheeks and into his beard,  _an' so did you.  Won't be long now, m' love.  Please let it not be long now!_  
  
Barbossa has struggled for years against the longest of odds to survive, even to hacking off his own leg to escape death at the hands of Blackbeard, but survival, he now knows, is for men who have something to live for.  It's no longer something he desires when he's finally realized that everything — the only thing — he wants is on the other side.        
  
  
  
  
-oOo-  
-oOo-  
  
  
  
  
No feet tread the steep lane leading to Grantham House these days, and why should they?  The building is closed up and old and creepy, and stories are told to the town's children to frighten them and keep them away.  Even those who would pillage it for anything valuable keep their distance, for everyone knows that the pirate who owns it will kill them instantly should he find out.  He may be short a leg, but there's not a thing wrong with his sword arm or the shot in his pistol, and even the crutch he leans on can do major damage.  A drunk who once accosted and jeered at him found that out the hard way when Barbossa smacked him in the throat with it, leaving him permanently unable to speak.  
  
With all that, the inn is left to decay in peace.  
  
After visiting Sophie's grave, where he kisses her marker and leaves a posy of wildflowers, sprigs of rosemary, a perfect orange, and a fresh green apple, Barbossa makes his way up the path and walks into the house, scarcely seeing the warped planks and damp and rot.  There are broken tiles in the kitchen and the grate is cold, but what he sees in his mind is the innkeeper, hard at work to feed her lodgers or preparing delicacies just for him.  He sees a wide-eyed little girl offering him a tray of crispy-skinned chickens;  her first effort at cooking them herself, as he found out later.  Though others might not think so, Barbossa does have his limits — always did — and would not despoil her as a child, but she was no child the following year.  Sophie, pretty Sophie, who made him feel something deep in his soul that no paid company or anyone else ever could, and who made him feel it so strongly that it's lasted the whole of his life.  
  
The parlor floor is a terrible mess, with water coming in every time it rains to further ruin the floor and rot the rugs, but there's still the settee at the back of the room;  the one where he would lounge while he puffed on his pipe.  And the cupboard in the corner near the stairs… he pushed Sophie in there on more than one occasion, the space just big enough for the two of them;  big enough if she'd cling tight and let him have his way with her.  He hears her delighted giggle even now and thinks it was just as likely she who was having her way with him.  He taught her to be shameless when they were together, and he adored her for it.  
  
There's a little room at the downwind edge of the house — a small place not exactly fragrant because that's where the chamber pots were taken to be dumped out the window — but Barbossa pays it a visit anyway because it holds a precious memory of defending Sophie's honor:  it's the window out of which he threw a drunken, threatening, foul-mouthed Jack Sparrow and ordered him never to come back.  Took a long, relieving piss out the window, too, using Jack as a target — for the first time, Barbossa chuckles faintly as he recalls watching the younger man go sprawling headlong down the hill — after which he took Sophie straight back to bed for another round of kisses and caresses and love.  
  
Gingerly making his way upstairs — some of the stairs are rotten and won't hold weight anymore, especially on the point of a peg — Barbossa goes first to a small room at the end of the corridor.  No guest ever stayed here, as it was Sophie's sickroom, used only for desperate cases:  her old grandmother at the end of her life, and then there was him.  He was embarrassed for a long, long time — what man wants his lover to spend days on end wiping his arse while he suffers the indignation of a wretched bout of dysentery? — but she only looked at him gravely, saying it was a privilege to nurse him and make sure he stayed alive.  He remembers how she wept and wailed and wrung his hands, pleading with him to wake up and say something, anything, and how unthinkingly he sniped at her, telling her to shut up with all her squawking.  
  
If only he could have her back, and no matter what she said, Lord knows he'd never say those words to her again.  
  
Out of eight other rooms on this level, there's only one that's of interest to him:  the bedroom they shared.  It's in better repair than might be expected, although there's an aura of dampness, the iron bedstead is rusting through its white paint, and there's a layer of dust on everything.  
  
Barbossa bought Grantham House some time ago, and took away the chemise that he currently has on the ship, but he's never been able to face taking a complete inventory of what else might be there, and especially not the things that are stored in this room.  But now, he feels the time has come and he must look, no matter the feelings it churns up… and those emotions nearly overwhelm him as they rush at him fast and thick.  
  
Sophie's washstand is here, even to the two embroidered towels, and Barbossa remembers lying in bed, watching her at her morning ablutions:  splashing cold water on her face, rubbing salt and burnt alum on her teeth to clean them and freshen her mouth, and finally sitting down at her vanity table — a simple thing with a single drawer and a mirror — where she'd brush out and put up her hair.  There's no lock on the drawer and he opens it, to be met with a surprise:  a glass treasure box holding, amongst other trinkets, the comb from Singapore he gave her, and a tarnished silver button from his old grey coat.  
  
A lump forms in his throat at the sight of them.  He'd almost forgotten about that button, although he definitely remembers presenting her with the comb.  There's the string of pink pearls he gave her in a soft silken bag, with everything lying on a folded dove-grey mantilla.  And there's something else, something that brings a shine to his faded blue eyes and a quiver to his lips:  a lover's knot, fashioned from locks of Sophie's hair and his own.    
  
Every one of the items represents a beautiful, much-loved memory, so the box will be coming with him back to the ship, wrapped in the pretty washstand linens.  
  
Out of curiosity, he investigates the concealed place where he helped her hide her gold, finding it all intact, but there's no reason to take it back, because he has plenty of his own.  This gold was Sophie's, his gift to her to ease her life, and should remain with the house in which she lived it.  Its real value to Barbossa lies in the giving of it;  if someone else should find and take it, well… it won't please him, but it's only gold, after all.  
  
The armoire is full of the dresses Barbossa gave her, including the one of soft velvet in a deep shade of blue that put roses in her cheeks.  They're voluminous and he won't be taking them aboard ship any more than he will the gold — they belong in the armoire where Sophie kept them and there's just no arguing that point — but he does gather up the most worn of her chemises, stockings, caps, and nightclothes:  the intimate garments that made contact with her skin and hair.  There's one in particular:  a ratty old chemise so short that it raised his eyebrows when he first saw it, and he sees now where she cut the worn-out length off, just as she'd explained.  
  
He feels the warmth of her body and the cold of spring water as he realizes it's what she was wearing when he taught her to swim.  
  
Though he hated seeing her having to wear a servant's rough clothing, Sophie's four linen smocks will be coming with Barbossa, too;  reminding him that she prepared wonderful food in them, gave him a clean house in them, washed their sheets in them… that she gave her pregnant belly room to grow in them.  How he wishes he could have seen her then, heavy with the boy-child that was his creation in the secrecy of her womb, and it's the greatest regret of his life that he was gone that entire year and missed it all.    
  
Or perhaps not _quite_ all,  he remembers, eyes closed and licking his lips to recapture the forbidden sensation of gently suckling at Sophie's breasts in an effort to relieve her of the pain her overabundant milk caused when it refused to dry up.  He recalls the aching tenderness of her swollen nipples on his tongue, and the sweet nourishment that flowed from them into his mouth as he sucked;  a taste and a feeling that, to this day, evoke the single clean and perfect and beautiful thing he's ever done.  Let no man — let no God — dare tell Barbossa that his lost son was anything but sinless and without need to be Judged;  not when the savor of that milk was innocence itself.  
  
As he touches the worn linen, Barbossa knows he has no real use for Sophie's smocks — they're not beautiful or valuable — but the garments and the knowledge that it was she who wore them somehow comforts him.  Perhaps he'll put one on his pillow at night.  Whether it makes him cry or helps him to sleep will make no matter — at least, he'll feel that she's with him — and out of one of them, perhaps he'll fashion a new bandana or two, which brings the memory of Sophie tenderly tying a linen length around his head after plaiting his hair.  "My fine and handsome man,"  he hears her whisper, her lips against the soft spot beneath his ear, her breath warm and damp on his skin.  "My beautiful Hector."  
  
No one else ever called him beautiful before.  
  
Barbossa is vain and always has been, but he's never been under any illusions:  his bearing is proud, his intellect sharp, and his clothes are rich and fine, but his looks… not so much.  His sisters got all the beauty in the family, while he — the only boy out of seven children — was scrawny, sunburnt, big-nosed, and distinctly plain;  characteristics that didn't improve as he got older.  He tried to make up for it with cleverness and pride, but it hurt to know that, until Sophie came along, decent women didn't want him, and that even the whores favored him only because he was so generous with his coin.  
  
In Sophie's bedroom, now that she's gone, he faces his past behavior and admits he regrets every one of those paid women he kissed and held and touched and told himself it was his right to do it;  that no woman, even the one he loved, had a claim on him.  But it wasn't true, he knows, and she'd claimed him, body, heart, and soul — even without her knowing it — from the time she was so young that he wouldn't have laid a finger on her.  _She waited for me.  I should've waited for her.  What be wrong wi' me that th' touch of me own hand an' sweet thoughts of m' Dove couldn't see me through?_       
  
She was the one woman in the world who saw only beauty in him;  something he now recalls Tia Dalma trying to tell him.  _She were beautiful, m' darlin' Sophia;  so very beautiful, an' kind beyond measure, an' she deserved what I were a fool an' wouldn't give:  that I should honor her wi' faithfulness, as she honored me_.  
  
Barbossa would be furious were anyone to suggest that Sophie Grantham was really only modestly pretty, but it doesn't matter what she seemed to others when she was so much more to him than that:  a welcoming presence, and warmth and softness and love.  Everyone thinks that he's tough and uncaring and doesn't need anything more than the sea and his ship, and there may have been times in his younger life when that was true, but not now.  
  
He tries hard not to think of it, but he's so ashamed of that one time he did such an awful thing to Sophie that, to this day, he can't help castigating himself over and over:  too blind drunk even to know he was in her port — finding Barbossa sprawled out in his cabin and unable to do it, it fell to the bo'sun to direct the _Pearl_ to drop anchor and see to the men and goods being loaded into the cockboats for transport — he was given or paid for the services of a loose woman (he still isn't sure which;  not that it matters, for the thought of either makes him ill) and Sophie found out;  worse than that, she saw him as he pawed at the half-naked doxy.  He knew fear, then — a terrible, sickening, crushing fear — that he would lose the one woman in all the world he cared for and loved.  
  
Yes:  loved.  Barbossa can say it now, and he says it often:  to himself, to the wind, to the sea, to the ship;  to anyone except other men.  If only he hadn't been such a pigheaded fool and refused to say it to Sophie while he still could.  He can tell himself a thousand times that he didn't understand how much the words meant to her, but he knows that's not true;  it's that he thought himself too big and bad to say such a gentle thing to a woman;  too uneasy about relinquishing control over his heart;  convinced that the words would be somehow dirtied up and ruined were they to come from him.  _Bloody idiot_ ,  he thinks every day now, several times a day.  _Ye weren't givin' away nothin' an' were only gettin' her whole heart in return;  an' since ye were were th' man Sophia loved, ye must ha' known she wouldn't find such expression foul were ye t' speak it.  So you think hard on this, Hector fuckin'-Barbossa:  ye may be a fine sea cap'n, admired 'mongst men, but ye knew nothin' of how t' treat a soft an' gentle woman what adored ye above all others_.  Then he sadly corrects himself.  _Ye knew nothin' afore it were too late_.  
  
   
  
         
-oOo-  
-oOo-  
  
  
  
  
The first mate knows there's something terribly wrong in his captain's life;  something he won't talk about, but that's killing him by bits.  Old as he is, Barbossa is tough as iron when there's a prize to be taken, barking orders in a bellow that carries over the din of battle, fighting with the strength of three men and six times as dirty;  but when it's quiet, he's withdrawn and melancholy, uninterested in the glittering prizes that so dazzle the rest of the crew.  He takes the helm night after night when it's quiet and he won't be bothered, and God only knows what he's thinking during all those hours alone.  
  
The worst thing is, there's really nothing he can do for Barbossa.  He can't offer a sympathetic ear, asking if the old man wants to talk;  can't even acknowledge that he feels something's amiss.  So he does what little he can, making certain the cook sets aside the best portions for the captain's table at every meal even if he doesn't want to eat;  overseeing the cabin boy in making double-sure the Great Cabin is especially well-kept and comfortable;  sending the ship's surgeon — they were fortunate in having a competent doctor sign Articles just three months before — to periodically examine the stump of Barbossa's leg while surreptitiously checking him over for other illness or injury.  
  
"I don't know,"  the doctor tells him one day not long after.  "The captain's leg is as good as might be expected, and he has no more than the ordinary irritations any other sailor might, but he won't answer questions when I ask them.  I can see that something's bothering him, though, and it's getting worse."  
  
"Can 'e still act as cap'n?"  
  
The doctor smiles sadly.  "Don't you dare try to take that away.  These days, and whatever else his troubles are, it's all he lives for."  
  
"Aye."  The first mate is nodding.  "'E's always done that."  
  
Neither knows about Barbossa's Sophie, or that his heart is broken and his whole life torn apart, and being captain just isn't enough anymore.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
-oOo-  
-oOo-  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Barbossa looks longingly up at the wheel, wishing he could spend the night there;  but, knowing it can no longer give him what he needs, he shakes his head.  "Think I'll be retirin' early this evenin',"  he sighs to the first mate.  "See that I'm not bothered, got that?"  
  
"Aye, sir."  The first mate watches Barbossa turn and move off, shoulders slumped and looking wearier than he's ever seen him.  Even his gaudy clothes seem muted and dull, as though all the brilliant life has been drained from them.  As ever, he wants to ask what's wrong and please, won't the captain talk to him about it, but he doesn't dare.  "See ye in th' mornin', Cap'n."  
  
Barbossa doesn't answer, and although he refuses to face it for what it is, a horrible twist in the first mate's stomach tells him he's likely looking at a man who's already seen his last sunrise.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
-oOo-  
-oOo-  
  
  
  
  
  
  
"Cap'n ain't come out yet,"  one man says, hoisting a coil of rope over his shoulder.  "Prob'ly wants a bit more shut-eye.  Can't say as I'm surprised, little as 'e sleeps."  
  
The first mate and the doctor look at each other, then creep quietly into Barbossa's cabin, calling softly for him, that he shouldn't be startled and pull a pistol on them if he's only dozing.  "Cap'n?"  the first mate whispers.  "Cap'n!"  
  
The doctor approaches Barbossa's bed to find him on his back, pale and unmoving, the tracks of tears on his face and a woman's linen chemise clutched in his hands.  _Did he have a mistress or lover no one knew of?_ he wonders. _Did this belong to her?  What happened to her?  Could that be why he seemed so distressed?_  
  
If only he knew how Barbossa had pressed the worn garment against his face, breathed in its scent, and wept those last earthly tears into it, and he's not yet familiar enough with seagoing lore to realize the heavy gold circlet in Barbossa's left ear would tell him what he wants to know.  "He's gone,"  he says, closing the captain's eyes.  "Whatever was disturbing him, he's past it now."  
  
The doctor washes Barbossa's body with seawater, then wipes the salt away with fresh, after which he and the first mate, helped by the quartermaster, dress him in his favorite suit of clothes;  not the showy gold-braided one he wore to impress the crew, but coat and breeches of subtle golden brown, with his cleanest shirt, a fine tapestry waistcoat, and a bright sash about his waist;  then a sturdy boot on his good leg before they polish with beeswax the peg for his other.  They debate over whether to allow him to retain his baldric and belt, because their silver buckles are heavy and valuable;  and then there's the lions'-head ring on his finger, his sword and knife and pistol, but they decide that there's plenty of swag in the _Revenge's_ holds, and it's only respectful to let the leader who gained it for them keep a few pieces for himself, and to allow a warrior to remain properly armed in death.  
  
There's a curious item in a niche by Barbossa's bed, wrapped in dainty embroidered cloth:  a small glass box holding things no man would own:  an inlaid wooden comb, a silver button, locks of black and faded auburn hair knotted together and wrapped in a bit of clean cotton, a string of pearls, a length of silver-grey lace.  It's so obviously precious to him that they decide to place the cloth-wrapped box in his folded hands, using a second sash to secure it.  
  
For all their questioning of his other valuables, not for an instant do they consider taking Barbossa's earrings — not the tooth, nor the gold — for every man knows that such things are the most personal, hard-earned belongings a sailor owns and not to be stolen.  The first mate removes the wide gold hoop just for a moment on a hunch as to what might be there, and he squints at the tiny letters.  _Sophia Grantham & Hector Barbossa_,  he reads,  _of Grantham House_.  It tells him a lot, for he knows that, ever since he's been under the command of the captain and although the port is a familiar one, Barbossa's never visited a woman there.  'Sophia' might have left him, or perhaps she's dead;  but in either case, that he still wears the earring says that Barbossa loved her enough to keep her memory as close to his heart as ever a sailor could.  
  
He decides, as he carefully fastens the circlet back into its proper place, that he will say nothing about it;  not even to the doctor.  Let Barbossa go to his rest unencumbered by knowing his crew discovered at the last that he was heartbreakingly human.       
  
They question each other:  should they place the captain's wig upon his head;  the one with the long, rich russet curls that mimic his natural color before he went so grey?  Though he wore it every day, he didn't really like it much, they know;  for all it kept him warm and was an unmistakeable symbol of authority, it was heavy and awkward and made him itch.  No, they conclude;  they will not send him to the afterlife in anything less than comfort.         
  
So they neaten and plait his natural hair, which is still thick and of a length to reach down his back, and tie a fresh blue bandana around his head;  then they place his feathered hat upon his chest;  the old battered round one they know he most favored even if he didn't wear it much these past few years.  "God rest ye, Cap'n,"  the first mate says quietly when they're done, laying his hand upon Barbossa's shoulder,  "but if He don't see fit t' welcome ye home, then may th' Devil bow hisself down low in respect afore he takes charge of yer soul."  _An' whether ye go up or down_ ,  he adds silently,  _may yer Sophia be waitin' t' meet ye there_.  
  
Barbossa is carried out of his cabin on a simple leather-and-wood pallet, his body covered by a linen sheet, and those of his silent crew who are wearing hats, doff them.  There will be no service, no formal words;  not when they've all seen too many deaths, for what can they say?  All they can do is stand in deferential quiet as they give him up to the sea.  
  
The crew hears the muffled splash and wait for the vessel they know is coming.  The _Flying Dutchman_ doesn't always gather her new souls on the surface, but this is a proud, magnificent captain of many decades standing, and they hope they'll be permitted to look Barbossa in the eye as they pay their final respects.  
  
They've not long to wait before the _Dutchman_ rises up alongside the _Revenge_ ;  and there on her deck stands Captain Barbossa, his plumed hat tilted rakishly on his head, fully garbed and armed as befits one of his position, tucking the glass box inside his coat with a nod of thanks to the men who sent it with him.  
  
  
  
  
-oOo-  
-oOo-  
  
  
  
  
The _Flying Dutchman_ remains on the surface as the _Queen Anne's Revenge_ sails away, now temporarily under the command of the first mate until the crew can properly vote upon a new captain;  waiting until she disappears over the horizon.  Then Captain Turner prepares to descend, but the waves lap at the _Dutchman's_ hull, telling her to wait;  that the sea goddess would have words with him about his newest passenger.  It seems she has something special to say about where he will go.  
  
Captain Turner doesn't argue;  after all, this is Calypso's domain and he only works here, so hers will be the final word.  _This worn-out body of his will remain with the sea, as is fitting_ ,  is her decision,  _but his soul I shall take to the land, to the woman who lived for him and loved him and died waiting for him.  From her grave, she watches out over my waters and waits for him still, and I can no longer bear to witness her sadness_.  
  
Turner looks down at Barbossa, who is sitting on the _Dutchman's_ deck, the knee of his good leg drawn up, arms wrapped around it, absently humming in his rough voice a children's tune that the innkeeper used to sing to him when he was restless, her rich contralto soothing his heart and his spirit.  "I never knew,"  he says.  "I didn't know he had someone."  
  
But,  _I knew_ ,  Calypso tells him.  _I saw her on the night when I first brought him back.  Sophie was her name — his Dove, he called her — a gentle innkeeper who gave him a home, her heart… a son.  Now it's time for him to return to her and wander no more_.  
  
Turner's ears have pricked up.  "A son?"  
  
_Aye:  Alexander.  The little one didn't survive to meet his father, and it's a shame I can do nothing about that, but still, it's a memory they'll share_ …  
  
_A son_ ,  thinks Captain Turner, who sorely misses his own.  "Did Barbossa marry her and give the child a name?"  
  
There's an indignant rustle of water and seaweed and the _Dutchman_ creaks sharply.  _He claimed the boy as his own the moment he learned of him, and no landsman's law was needed to truly wed him to Sophie, that he might bestow his name upon her and their little one;  only his own will that they should bear it_.  The flow of the waves gentles as Calypso thinks of the couple and all they've suffered.  _He gave his name to her long ago and has called it out to me every day since then.  She lived and died as Sophie Grantham in the eyes of men, but Sophia Barbossa she will be for the rest of time, and the man's body you take to the depths will be known to have had a well-loved and loving wife, and a widow_.  
  
Barbossa is losing touch with what's around him and getting sleepy;  he slips to the deck, curled up on his side, his blue eyes closing for the last time, and Will Turner knows it's time to go.  It's not often that a man's body and soul go to different realms, but it's not unheard of, either, and Calypso knows what to do to make it happen.  _Come, Hector Peran Barbossa, proud son of Melyor and Martinho, beloved of Sophia, loving father of Alexander,_ she whispers, her waters gathering around him as the _Dutchman_ sinks beneath the waves _.  Let go this tired, careworn old body, for it's time that your heart and soul will lift up to the skies and fly to your waiting Dove.  Let go, Barbossa, let go_ ……

 

 

  
  
-oOo-  FIN  -oOo-


End file.
